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BODIES. 6 Women, 1 Man - Flowers Gallery

AN EXHIBITION of work by Nadav Kander entitled BODIES. 6 Women, 1 Man will be on display at Flowers Gallery from January 10 to February 9, 2013.

Coated in white marble dust and set against the void of the photographer’s studio, the subjects of the exhibition serve as monumental studies of the human condition.

From the airbrushed perfection that permeates images of nudity in popular culture, Kander presents honest photographs of the human form. The ‘bodies’ featured reference the forms of the classical and renaissance past, whilst modernising the genre of the nude to act as a tool for philosophical investigation.

Faces turned from the viewer, but bodies offered completely, the forms invite the meditation and self-reflection customarily associated with religious iconography and tomb sculpture.

Kander has cited Elizabethan notions of purity as an influence for his bleached treatment of the auburn haired bodies. The subjects are placed awkwardly, contorted and twisted or bowed reverently. In Audrey with Toes and Wrist Bent (2011), the form reclines, her toes and fingers curled uncomfortably from limbs.

Flaws laid bare, the figure is exposed and vulnerable to our gaze. It is this sense of vulnerability and of humanity stripped of its defences that Kander investigates as a point of beauty.

BODIES. 6 Women, 1 Man develops the exploration of the human condition established by Kander in earlier works such as Yangtze – The Long River. Whether photographing the consequences of the incomprehensible development in modern-day China, or a white painted nude suspended against the darkness of his studio, his photographs are linked by their ‘compassionate ruthlessness’, and by the constant strive to explore the poeticism of life’s idiosyncrasies.